UC Santa Barbara

Recent work on snow pack energy exchange has involved detailed investigations on snow albedo and attempts to integrate energy energy balance calculations over drainage basins. Along with our better understanding of the electromagnetic properties of snow, research in remote sensing has become more focused toward estimation of snow pack properties. In snow metamorphism, analyses of the physical processes must now be coupled to better descriptions of the geometry of the snow’s microstructure. The dilution method now appears to be the best direct technique for measuring the liquid water content of snow; work on electromagnetic methods continues. Increasing attention to the chemistry of the snow pack has come with the general focus on acid precipitation in hydrology. Copyright 1987 by the American Geophysical Union.